205w ago - Today Nintendo has confirmed (PDF) that the Wii's successor will be shown and playable at E3 this year, and that the new home console will be launching sometime in 2012.

According to several reports, the next-gen 'Project Cafe' Wii will utilize a new controller providing users with a unique view to streamed content from their console and TV.

To quote from MCVUK (linked above): "A fierce fortnight of rumours concerning the Wii 2 has been rounded off with official confirmation of a new Nintendo home console.

The platform holder confirmed as much in a note attached to its most recent financial report. It confirms that a “successor” to the popular motion sensing machine will launch at some point in 2012. It will be shown at this year's E3 in June."

Finally, for those wondering E3 runs this year from June 7 to June 9, 2011.

Well yeah I still reckon it's fake and more an elaborate hoax by some design students mostly because of the lack of an Ethernet port (even if there isn't one on a retail unit surely a dev kit would have one) but also I think the omission of an optical drive (a full size one anyway) would be disastrous.

No backwards compatibility and no blu rays or even dvds? just sounds a bit too much for me, though there is a rumour that the games will be sold on 25GB flash cartridges (or memory cards depending on your semantics). Either way we'll find out soon enough, roll on the E3.

Doesn't sound right but it is nintendo so I wouldn't be surprised if there is a curve ball in there like the game 'discs' having their own memory for saves etc like they were working on for the SNESCD addon, but 8GB of local storage definitely doesn't sound right to me. Even a few wiiware titles would quickly use that up. But at the same time It wouldn't be like nintendo to use a conventional HDD for local storage.

The proprietary disc system sounds about right though given nintendo's love of proprietary storage (the wii is the only nintendo system to not use such a system)

Yeah I'd agree they might use a new format but I just don't see nintendo making a new console without the ability to play wii games. They've been backwards compatibility mad for years and that slit looks definitely too small to fit a full size dvd and I don't see ninty going for mini blu rays like the gamecubes mini dvds.

But you can't really blame the medium for piracy it's more down to the console itself and its own security just look at the ds.

I just don't see nintendo going for system with no optical disc drive, they know if it goes download only retailers will give them very little support and it'd basically ruin any sort of backwards compatibility plans.

There's the shot from the back I came across, but it just doesn't have the sort of connectivity I think this thing will have. Namely no power input or video / audio out, which I think would be kind of important lol

Why are you saying there is no optical drive? I see a slit in the front that can very well be a new size optical drive, much how the gamecube was. keep in mind the Wii is hacked to all hell, so it's not surprising they may try another format of their own to combat it.

I just don't see nintendo going for system with no optical disc drive, they know if it goes download only retailers will give them very little support and it'd basically ruin any sort of backwards compatibility plans.

There's the shot from the back I came across, but it just doesn't have the sort of connectivity I think this thing will have. Namely no power input or video / audio out, which I think would be kind of important lol

I'm guessing it's a mock-up more than a final design of the retail unit. The rumours say it'll look like a modernised cross between the NES and SNES which could be interesting. But apparently central to the rumours is backwards compatibility with wii games with the console acting as the sensor bar for wiimotes but this design doesn't have the width for that to be possible and on the other shot of the back (not posted) there's also no socket for the wii sensor bar.

Also there's no ethernet port on the back which would be central to a dev unit for storage and debugging so I'm ruling out dev unit too.